


The tale of a cup of coffee

by heme



Series: Chemistry student Deidara [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Crack, M/M, so much coffee
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:22:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24999790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heme/pseuds/heme
Summary: One of Deidara's problem sets is due tomorrow. And he encountered a handful of unexpected troubles.Rated a T to be safe.
Relationships: Deidara/Sasori (Naruto)
Series: Chemistry student Deidara [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1813744
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16





	The tale of a cup of coffee

**Author's Note:**

> Disturbing oneshot that came up when the coffee craving me was brushing up random stuff. I always liked the idea of Deidara the suffering chemistry student and Sasori the not – suffering – that – much engineering student, so here we go. Quite technical, may trigger horrific memories in chem majors. 
> 
> Enjoy, or not.

It was a lazy Thursday afternoon.

With a damp towel and a set of dirty clothing hung limply on his hand, bottle of body wash on his horizontal arm, Deidara sashayed across the corridors back to his dormitory.

Per regulations of the college, dormitory rooms on campus are allocated randomly. He did not have Madame Fortune on his side, and the last of the _en suite_ rooms were given to Itachi. Itachi, after straightening his hair to gain some composure in this place of pure madness, went to collect his new set of keys from the management office. The clerk who sat behind his computer screen offhandedly mentioned to him with an expression of envy, attempted hidden, to Itachi that he was assigned the very last _en suite_ on campus.

The weasel then deemed it fit to flaunt this lucky occurrence to Deidara.

Needless to say, the blond’s explosive temper flared up despite it being common knowledge that Itachi has some sort of a magical power where he could achieve virtually anything he desires. Ten minutes later, all that was seen were glass fragments littering the dormitory floor, with broken lamplights mixing upon the reflections. In contrast, there were more to all that is heard – delayed angry and urgent knocks on Deidara’s door, with muffled groans of “bloody hell, cut this crazy shit out.” The path of being violent at random cups were now sealed off by incessant complaints from the surroundings, which leaves Deidara silently swearing to himself to sneak into the Uchiha’s dormitory and inject him with ten full millilitres of _n-butyllithium_ as revenge. This mere thought is satisfying enough to calm the impulsive blond down instantaneously.

After adjusting himself for a couple of hours, Deidara settled down rather nicely to his new room. There is not much of a difference between The Peasantry and _en suite_ , as he discovered later on and was satisfied about.

Now that the timetables indicated that Deidara has no further classes for today, he decided to take a short break out of his crushing workload. What is truly debilitating for a chemistry student, is the fact that most of them were tricked by magical feats of dangerous explosions performed on college open days to sign up for this harmless single – subject major; in reality, under the masquerade of what claims to be a single subject are in fact three. In other words, it is an academic version of buy one, get two free. Sasori knew this all along, and got an immensely humongous laugh out of the sheer stupidity of the freshman once Deidara confessed that he is a chemistry student. The poor brat, not knowing what kind of a living hell he has managed to drag himself into. Sasori was not afraid to admit that engineering was horrible to virtually anyone who dared to approach him and ask, but at least it was not _that_ horrible and infuriating. To a certain extent throughout his first year, unlike Deidara with his fluctuating life choices, Sasori managed to obtain himself a steady sleep schedule so that in the next morning, he does not feel exhausted when he wakes up.

Deidara slumped with negative grace into his bed, a fresh mug of coffee placed at the brim of the nightstand right on the edge of his arm range. He was pressured by his impatience and high – strung curiosity into finishing another chapter of “Ada and Ardor” by utilising the little spare time he now has, until an annoying ding from his phone tickled his ears and mind.

It is nothing but an unimportant notification on his phone. A message from Gari, his lab partner.

“Dei?”

“yes?”

“did you do the problem set?”  
“on oscillating systems”

Deidara did not know that there was a problem set assigned. His visible eye first opened under the flush of franticness, then narrowed dangerously.

“what?”

“there’s a problem set due tomorrow 7pm”  
“that same one”

There was a pause. The unsuspecting victim can only marvel at his own so – called competence. He pushed the screen, word by word,

“how did I not know?”

Gari furiously rolled his eyes on the other end of the conversation.

“because you had a massive hangover after trying out the brilliant idea of doing problem sets while drunk”. Followed by a screenshot of the same bet detailing exactly how did Deidara utter the marvellous plan.  
“so you called in sick the next day and missed the tutorial”  
“and you were too lazy to check the department website”

By virtue of what that idiot managed to keep his streak of a perfect GPA is well beyond Gari. It may or may not have at least something to do with Sasori and his compulsive perfectionism.

Deidara logged onto the department website after being smacked upside down by the sudden intrusion of an undone sliver of homework. Springing into his sight was the exact same problem set, stated in bold that it is due tomorrow night, the one Gari was talking about. He has no choice but to put his book of temptations down, quenching his anger afterwards by taking it out when slicing through the problem set similar to an undull sword cleaving through mud. Not until Deidara has send a satisfactory reply to Gari first as an act of common courtesy. The awkward situation and the reply were nothing less than…

“shit”. This word speaks volumes to both men. At the same instant, Sasori sneezed in the middle of his lecture. The bottom of his stomach was warning him about a brewing storm.

There were no further replies from the lab partner that was addressed.

Several pens and pencils aligned with rulers and a calculator were rapidly plucked out in succession along with a couple sheets of lined paper, a habit that he has made under Sasori’s barrage of requests of “fetch me the materials, and I hate waiting, brat.” Deidara blinked at the questions displayed on his laptop screen, grinning to himself when he realised that he has already went over this topic several days before the missed lecture. Fitting the difficulty presumed suitable for freshmen, they were nothing massively remarkable; write the differential equations down and that is one – third of the work. The rest is mechanical repetitive torture involved during the process of solving and interpreting them. To make things worse, it was stated explicitly at the front cover of this specific problem set: numerical solutions are not allowed, since the lecturer was kind enough to design equations that can be solved analytically without a massive mess.

This disastrous news prompted inner Deidara to unleash a barrage of colourful vocabulary inside his consciousness that could rival Hidan’s. No – he was supposed to be cool, and accordingly, he plastered a sly smirk over his appearance.

It is only then the dawning of realisation pushed the blond’s pride out of the way, and rushed into Deidara’s brain. The feedback step in the mechanism essentially coupled two differential equations together. Despite the course ‘differential equations’ from last term has outlined in detail how to solve equations of this kind, of which Deidara passed nicely, his forgetful side automatically smoothed the ridges of the procedure after the big exam day. He has no choice but to search for online examples and pull some sense out of his notes in order to re – run himself through the method, and frankly speaking, repeating what has not been cemented through a thorough learning process is a massive waste of time. Deidara was already an impatient person before he has met Sasori, however, Sasori’s infamous impatience has managed to rub off him massively only a couple of days after meeting the younger blond.

Two hours later, replacing the previously nonchalant scene was a dishevelled and unsure looking Deidara sprawled on his chair, a stapled stash of paper branded by handwriting flung on a desk littered with dirty eraser shards, and a long empty mug of coffee. Caffeine is a diuretic; it could be said with certainty that the downed stimulant has already been converted into waste. What a familiar undignified sight.

A blow to Deidara’s massive pride was delivered when he realised that he could not guarantee the quality of the solutions, lest he will get points taken off for inaccuracy. No way the Uchiha will hear of this event of losing marks over trivial mistakes. His hands glided along the table surface, drawing ellipses, to search for his phone and ring up Sasori. It was about dinner time, the period when Deidara could meet Sasori down at the hall to grab some food and to go over his urgent request.

Deidara plugged the familiar screen backed with hues of blue until ‘Danna’ came up from his list of contacts. Sasori fumbled around in his pocket when he heard the incoming call, eventually managed to pull out his phone.

The familiar annoying voice interrupted his sweet silence, the type of silence that one would expect after hearing two full hours of a middle – aged woman drabbling about dynamics. “Danna, un?”

Sasori sighed, “Brat.”

“Are you on the way to the hall?” Deidara tugged his lips into a lopsided smirk. Sasori – no – Danna has no idea about what was he preparing to do.

“Yes.” The redhead mouthed out a blank reply. Stemming from the microphone of Deidara’s phone, he could hear the zipper of the blond’s bag being opened, followed by rich noises of several sheets of paper crinkled against each other, and the sharp collisions of sturdy plastic pens. His intuition is screaming at him that there is something weird going on, but he cannot pinpoint it.

Deidara chuckled, stuffing the last of his belongings into his personal container, “Right,” the vowel was dragged out and punctuated with a tiny laugh from the back of his throat, “I’ll see you there in ten minutes, Danna! Bye, un!”

The call was then ended. Sasori rolled his eyes. He could virtually see Deidara scrambling out of his dormitory room and skipping like an infatuated high schooler on the way to her first date down the stairs, maybe excusing the glass door in the process. What a stupid brat, regardless to what is even stupider is the fact that he is attracted to the brat. Sasori brushed the disturbing thought aside, and instead found himself a seat in the hall facing the quad.

Speaking of the devil, he arrived with his trademark smirk and half ponytail. Deidara immediately caught Sasori in his field of vision, blue eyes making contact with hues of half – lidded russet. He stuck out his tongue at Sasori, the brat knew what was he doing and it was pissing the puppeteer off, then sauntered away to grab himself a sandwich and two cups of coffee. The café latte is for filling his caffeine addiction, and the black is for Jashin knows what.

Thereafter getting his food, Deidara approached Sasori in a deliberate slow pace, while orienting himself using all the coolness that he could muster to face the redhead. He placed the cup of unsweetened pure, bitter black coffee into Sasori’s vacant left hand, then sat down with his sandwich and half – hearted watered down version of the same.

Sasori did not even glance up at Deidara. He instead hummed, “I’m a coffee dealer.”

There was a scoff coming from the younger man, “And I don’t live at Lauriergracht, un.”

“For an uneducated oath, you actually did read that piece. What wind brings you here all the sudden?”

Deidara held up his hands in mid – air and grinned, “No need to be so paranoid, Danna!” The redhead’s heart dropped to the bottom of a cliff after hearing this impish remark, “Can’t your love interest – ” Sasori glared over the rim of his paper cup in response, “- even have a peaceful dinner with you, un?”

The puppeteer raised one eyebrow, trying to hide the sudden flush of embarrassment on his delicate features, “You sure are overconfident. And overconfidence does not make one last long.”

“No need to be such a stick in the mud, Danna! This is nothing serious, un.” Deidara jabbed, “I just need you for a little consultation, that’s all.”

Sasori snorted, “A _little_ consultation. Seems to me that you take great pleasure in my suffering. And the black coffee is for bribing me to do your favour, is it not?”

“Of course!” Deidara clapped his hands with a grin, his loose fringe pushed aside by the sudden gust of air generated, “I’m definitely not taking this to the Uchiha, un, so that leaves you.”

“I’m flattered about my place in your heart.” Sasori rolled his eyes in mock hurt after downing a sip of coffee brought to him by his truly – Deidara. The chemistry student then whipped out a sheet of paper, scribbled on it are several differential equations, and hurled it right onto Sasori’s now dirtied plate of salad. Sasori resisted the urge to raise his middle finger at this unhygienic action.

The older redhead smirked, “So that is the favour. Do I even have a choice to opt out?”

“Obviously, yeah!” Sasori immediately stood up from his seat in all his glory and strided away, leaving Deidara to huff at his own indignance, “But if you do…” The puppeteer was forced by his subconscious to defy the sensible urge of not looking back, instead finding himself staring at a pouting Deidara with fake puppy eyes. Damn the manipulative brat.

Sasori coughed, “Brat, you do realise that I’m an engineer? Whenever there’s a numerical method, I’m not using an analytical one.”

“Then this is just right for you, un!” The blond snorted with a devilish gleam in his eyes, “The lecturer wrote right on the front page that only analytical methods are allowed! Makes me wonder if he’s a spy from the hardcore maths department, un.” Sasori squeezed his eyes and shrugged in response. He did not dare to even take a fleeting glance at the carnal expression on the brat’s face. Nevertheless, the bet has already been placed on the stakes when Deidara called him earlier this hour, and he cannot back down after the deal was sealed shut by Deidara’s puppy eyes. So it was decided – Sasori will take this challenge head on.

The engineering student took a better look at Deidara’s sheet of questions. He snorted in distaste after realising that the equations were linear and can be solved by the simple and straightforward method of variation of parameters.

“I’m glad that this brat isn’t my boyfriend. Too stupid for my taste.”

Deidara chuckled, knowing that this is the right time to pull a prank on Sasori, “Danna, un. What are eigenvalues?”

He did not expect Sasori to see right through his little harmless remark. “Stop working for that Oscar, brat.” The one who wields his irritability as a deadly weapon could feel an artery pop inside his skull as his minute patience was tested to its edge, “Both of us knows clearly that you’ve solved this system on your own. So, get to the point and stop wasting my time. Exactly what was the issue?” If this meaningless brawl, second in place to their notorious Art Wars, drags any further, Sasori is fully prepared to chuck the remaining half of his coffee onto Deidara’s prized hair with a lazy smirk, garnished with a drizzle of honey and a pinch of salt for good measure.

“Impatient as always, Sasori – no – Danna. Well, you see,” The blond drawled nicely out of the corner of his mouth, “I don’t know if I’ve solved them correctly or not, un.” He rubbed the back of his head with an apologetic smile that could trick everyone else except Sasori, “So I need someone else to check, yeah.”

Sasori was thwarting the urge to grit his teeth, and he blurted out from his limbic system, “Then why don’t you say so earlier?”

Deidara blinked slowly, “Because… I want to spend some time with you?” The emotionally stunted redhead let out a mild “oh” in response, meanwhile whipping out a pencil and a calculator. After ten minutes of continuous susurrus between pencil and paper supplemented by ceaseless clatter of calculator buttons being pressed, handed to Deidara were elegantly presented solutions with respect to all his questions written in neat handwriting.

“You better buy me a bottle of Toscana for this, brat.” Sasori was convinced that beer is for uncultured bastards like Hidan.

“Sure thing, Danna. In ten years.” Deidara grinned.

“Spoken as if I want to ingest something tainted by your hands.” Sasori dryly answered. The brat conveniently forgot the fact that Sasori slurped up his cup of dark coffee from Deidara without complaints.

A ‘ding’ interrupted their scuffle. It was another message from Gari.

“Dei?”  
“you finished yet?”

Deidara unlocked his phone, and typed down,

“yeah, why?”  
“you want to copy my work?”  
“that’s unartistic, you know”

Gari rolled his eyes violently yet again.

“I’m not planning to, either way”  
“fyi”  
“the deadline’s extended to next monday”

Deidara’s body shook in blatant hysterics as all his hurried effort turned to none; under a fit of exasperation, he clenched his phone hard enough that the sheer force delivered by the constriction might break the device in half. Several visible ticks sprung out of his clear forehead there and then. Sasori sat across, observing the brat’s sudden turn of actions with amused half – lidded eyes, sporting sadistic chuckles in return.

Despite the uncalled work, this was unexpectedly fun.


End file.
